Chapter 3: What Diane Knew
"Protect what?" I said.
"What are you protecting?"
Diane looked at Richard.
He looked at the floor.
"Richard." I stepped closer.
"Look at me."
He did.
And that was almost worse — because I saw it immediately.
Not guilt exactly.
Something older than guilt.
Something that had been sitting behind his eyes for a long time, waiting for exactly this moment.
"How long?" I said.
"Martha—"
"How long have you known her?"
The man beside Diane — I still didn't know his name — quietly pulled out his chair and sat back down.
Like he'd decided this was going to take a while.
Richard ran a hand across the back of his neck.
"Four years."
The number landed like something physical.
"Four years," I repeated.
"It's not what you're thinking."
"Then tell me what it is.
Because I'm standing in a restaurant I booked for our anniversary, wearing the dress you said you loved, and you walked in here to meet another woman.
So tell me exactly what it is, Richard, because I am running out of ways to give you the benefit of the doubt."
Diane unfolded her arms.
"He didn't come here for me," she said.
"He came here because of what's in that envelope."
I hadn't noticed it until she said it.
A white envelope on the table, half tucked under the bread basket.
The man beside her put his hand on top of it without looking down.
Like a reflex.
"What envelope?" I said.
Richard's jaw worked.
"We should talk about this at home."
"We're not going home.
We're here.
Talk."
Diane looked at Richard for a long moment.
Whatever passed between them, he didn't stop her.
She pulled the envelope out from under the man's hand and held it toward me.
I didn't take it.
Not yet.
"Who are you?" I said to her directly.
"Not what you are to Richard.
Who are you?"
She didn't flinch.
"My name is Diane Calloway.
My husband is Paul." She nodded toward the man beside her.
"And eighteen months ago, your husband came to Paul asking for help with something he couldn't tell you about."
Paul finally looked up.
He had the look of a man who had rehearsed something and was now deciding whether to say it.
"Richard came to me because I'm an attorney," Paul said.
"What he told me was privileged.
But what's in that envelope isn't."
I looked at Richard.
"You hired a lawyer and didn't tell me?"
"I needed advice first.
Before I knew what we were dealing with."
"Dealing with," I said.
"What does that mean?"
Richard reached into his jacket pocket and set his phone on the table, face up.
There was a photo on the screen.
A document of some kind — dense text, official-looking header, a signature at the bottom.
"Someone has been using your name, Martha," he said.
"Your full legal name.
Your date of birth.
Your mother's maiden name." He paused.
"They've been using it for three years."
The room didn't go quiet.
It had been quiet.
But something shifted in the air around me.
"Using it for what?"
Richard picked up the phone and turned it toward me.
"A second mortgage," he said.
"On our house."
I stared at the screen.
May you like
The signature at the bottom looked exactly like mine.
It wasn't.
